Sunday In The Park With George: A Musical Curation By Stephen Sondheim

Abstract

This analysis serves to reveal the strong interconnectedness between museums and theatre (mentioned only briefly by other scholars) as uniquely demonstrated by Stephen Sondheim's musical, Sunday in the Park with George. Because Sondheim chose George Seurat's museum-housed painting, Sunday on the Island La Grande Jatte, as the foundation for his show, museum practices including labels, titles, ways of seeing, and curatorial authority--to which Seurat's painting has already been subjected--can also be located in Stephen Sondheim's musical. However, in the musical the artist is returned authority over his painting, above museum practice and curator bias. By granting the artist such dominion over the artwork, Sondheim redirects the focus from Seurat's innovative pointillist style (as commonly found in history books) to a focus on the relationship between artist and artwork, allowing for artist and painting to converse.